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Ebay Cheats Or, The Absoluteness Of Time


wastelanded

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I present to you the following auction: http://www.ebay.de/itm/271709080409

 

Said auction was supposed to end this morning at 09:58 CET. I happened to be awake as the auction was ending, and watched the final seconds count down with my bid being the highest. Auction ends, ok I won. Later I look for the invoice to pay, and the auction actually ended at 09:58:15! Somehow 15 seconds were added to the end of the auction, to enable someone to snipe me.

 

This was after I saw the final seconds count down with no additonal bids, and I saw the auction end.

 

Now don't get me wrong. I fully expected to be sniped at the end of the auction: I was in shock that the auction ended and I wasn't outbid. But for someone, either the seller or the sniper (there were actually two of them), to add time to the auction after I saw the auction end?

 

Or maybe time is indeed elastic? I've only had half a coffee.

"I was cut off from the world. There was no one to confuse or torment me, and I was forced to become original." - Franz Joseph Haydn 1732 - 1809
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Several times I have watched an auction end with a winning bid only to find that after the auction had 'ended' and the result came up that I had been outbid.

 

Very frustrating but I don't think there is much to be done other than not to look at the auction's end.

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Several times I have watched an auction end with a winning bid only to find that after the auction had 'ended' and the result came up that I had been outbid.

 

Very frustrating but I don't think there is much to be done other than not to look at the auction's end.

It's possible it could be a delay in your browser's processing of javascript and such, since they do the countdowns and what not in AJAX/Jquery sort of. Otherwise who knows. If I intend to 'snipe' I tend to put my bid in around 15 seconds just to be on the safe side, chances are if I'm outbid at 5 seconds I have next to no chance to up it anyways, and I should only be bidding what I'm willing to pay anyways.

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Hi,

 

Might it be the difference between the time the bid was sent, Bidder local time, and the time that it reached the end of the eB@y bid processing maze? i.e. If a Bidder has a very slow network and submits their bid just prior to the end of the auction (according to the eB@y clock on their display, which might be slow), it could take longer for that bid to be 'heard' by the auctioneer than a Bidder with a milspec net. Perhaps such elasticity is in place to level the field amongst Bidders with different network speeds. But 15 seconds??

 

Also, I've seen the eB@y countdown timer lurch forward and hang back - so the bid clock is not so linear.

 

Bye,

S1

The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

 

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According to eBay, the auction ended at 20.12.14 09:58:19 MEZ The winning bid was placed at 20.12.14 09:58:15 MEZ

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Yeah, and it was supposed to end at 9:58:00 according to the auction.

"I was cut off from the world. There was no one to confuse or torment me, and I was forced to become original." - Franz Joseph Haydn 1732 - 1809
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Auction times are set by ebay so I cannot see it being an ebayer cheat. I would go for a browser/computer time issue. I have found the ebay timing very poor of late more so in that many of the auctions I watch fail to count down the last hour.

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What a gyp. I didn't think I'd win, but I thought I did. I still feel cheated!

"I was cut off from the world. There was no one to confuse or torment me, and I was forced to become original." - Franz Joseph Haydn 1732 - 1809
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I've never sold anything on eBay so I don't know if this is true or not but when a seller puts a listing up I assume he has to specify the length of time for the auction. I would further assume that the amount of time for the auction is limited to crude units (days or hours). It could be then that the auction starts at a slightly odd time (the extra few seconds) but that eBay rounds to the nearest minute on the listing page that buyers see. In any case it would make little difference to the auction because everyone, including the sniper programs, would be seeing the same time. And at the end of the auction it gives the exact time the auction ended based on when it was listed plus the time to run.

 

That's what I think happens. You would have to sit and watch such an auction with an appropriate, non-internet, atomic-linked time source to determine if there really is anything amiss here. Just going by what it says on the screen (which is presumably what everyone else is seeing) does not really tell us a great deal.

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No, I don't do e-Bay anymore. I do not see the point of "sniping". If you set your max price at say $125.50 and with half a second to go somebody bids $125.75, so what. Heck, $125.50 was the most you were willing to pay. Seems to me that the "sniping" game is for suckers.

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Yeah, and it was supposed to end at 9:58:00 according to the auction.

Where do you see it was to end at 9:58:00? I don't see that time anywhere but my German sucks.

San Francisco International Pen Show - The next “Funnest Pen Show” is on schedule for August 23-24-25, 2024.  Watch the show website for registration details. 
 

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I've had two browser windows open on the same item before and noticed differences between the countdowns shown to be quite considerable, as in a good 30 seconds or more.apart. Had I been sniping on the 'slow' window, the auction would have ended before I placed my bid.

 

Did you actually get the "Congratulations you won" screen or did you just see the timeout?

Toodle pip<BR><BR><BR>

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No, I don't do e-Bay anymore. I do not see the point of "sniping". If you set your max price at say $125.50 and with half a second to go somebody bids $125.75, so what. Heck, $125.50 was the most you were willing to pay. Seems to me that the "sniping" game is for suckers.

I use esnipe which sets my limit and is useful when I cannot be in front of the computer.

 

Always Yours

A Sucker

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Yeah, and it was supposed to end at 9:58:00 according to the auction.

Sorry, but it couldn't ever have ended at 9:58:00 as it started at 9:58:19

 

ebay auctions are always set to end at the same time as they start

 

http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/s.gif Startpreis EUR 14,99 15.12.14 09:58:19 MEZ

Edited by Chrissy
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Ewwww!

 

Spike and Point to the English Lady!

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl

 

Don't insult her. :) ... the lady is Welsh.

 

D.ick

~

KEEP SAFE, WEAR A MASK, KEEP A DISTANCE.

Freedom exists by virtue of self limitation.

~

 

 

 

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I've noticed that sometimes on final countdowns the numbers don't seem to be counting the seconds, well, evenly....

I know that when I'm bidding on something I will make a notation in the listing about when the *approximate* end of the auction is, mostly so I remember to make sure I pay attention. And I've noticed that the "end time" listed isn't always QUITE the same time as what the countdown time is (i.e., a listing will say, "ends in 1 day 17 hours" when it's really more like 17 hours and 5 minutes). But I haven't seen what wastelanded was complaining about.

Somehow, though, this thread is reminding me of a story I read when I was a kid, called "The Clocks of Arles". This girl takes her clock all over town telling everyone that their clock is too fast or slow (compared, of course to *her* clock) because she wants to know precisely when Christmas Day starts. Needless to say, the townspeople are Not Amused. She eventually ends up at the observatory, where an astronomer points out more accurate mathematical and astronomical calculations which prove that her clock is running something like 17 minutes slow.... (Heck, I can't even synchronize the clock on my kitchen oven with the one on the microwave better than a couple of seconds apart -- my reflexes just aren't that fast!)

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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I present to you the following auction: http://www.ebay.de/itm/271709080409

 

Said auction was supposed to end this morning at 09:58 CET. I happened to be awake as the auction was ending, and watched the final seconds count down with my bid being the highest. Auction ends, ok I won. Later I look for the invoice to pay, and the auction actually ended at 09:58:15! Somehow 15 seconds were added to the end of the auction, to enable someone to snipe me.

 

 

Sorry... I am a little confused... Did you see your bid win?.. As in.. did you see the message "You are the winner!!"

 

If that is the case, I am sure the is a record somewhere, I have not idea how they will "cheat' like that.

 

If you never saw the "You are the winner" message, then ... I think you were snipe at the last second.

 

I know is annoying. :(

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I present to you the following auction: http://www.ebay.de/itm/271709080409

 

Said auction was supposed to end this morning at 09:58 CET.

Not so. It was supposed to end at 09:58:19 CET.

 

--Daniel

"The greatest mental derangement is to believe things because we want them to be true, not because we observe that they are in effect." --Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Daniel Kirchheimer
Specialty Pen Restoration
Authorized Sheaffer/Parker/Waterman Vintage Repair Center
Purveyor of the iCroScope digital loupe

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